The National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee has summoned postmaster-general Dan Kagwe to account for Ksh.168 million from non-remittance that was collected on behalf of the business registration service and held by Huduma Center.
Solicitor General Kennedy Ogeto revealed that Posta had collected money on behalf of Huduma Center and has since not remitted it to the treasury.
“We will pursue PCK for Ksh.168 million. We need to call the CEO of Postal Corporation of Kenya to come here in one week’s time and explain the whereabouts of this money”, said PAC Chairperson Opiyo Wandayi.
Ogeto also told the Committee that Posta entered into an agreement with Huduma Centers that allowed them to use a postal corporation account to collect the money.
“We were using the Postal Corporation of Kenya account. The accountability lies with the postal corporation. They were collecting revenue on our behalf and they were supposed to remit it to the national treasury,” said Ogeto.
The Committee subjected Ogeto to explain how Posta was able to contract service providers to collect revenue on their behalf.
The service providers include e-citizen, Safaricom and Kenya commercial bank with Ogeto saying Treasury directed Posta to collect revenue using the e-citizen platform.
Auditor-general Nancy Gathungu questioned posta’s failure to remit the revenue to the exchequer when revealed that respective contrast agreements were not provided for audit review.
“This is contrary to section 64(1)(a) of the public finance management (National Government) Regulations,2015,that requires an accounting officer and receiver of revenue to personally be responsible for ensuring that adequate safeguards exist and are applied for the prompt collection and proper accounting of all national government revenue and other public moneys relating to their ministries, departments or Agencies, “said Ms.Gathugu.
The cash in question is subject to what was collected in past years but was not transferred to the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) revenue account.
